Dáil debates

Thursday, 12 July 2018

Water Conservation: Statements

 

3:40 pm

Photo of Jan O'SullivanJan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Labour Party, I support the Minister's call for ongoing vigilance in the conservation of water. It is important that this message go out today because people have seen a little drop of rain here and there and they might believe the crisis is over. It is not and there is still a serious problem producing sufficient water for domestic, business and agricultural use. We all support the call.

I too want to address the issue of leaks. The article in The Irish Timesthat was just referred to might overestimate slightly the volume of water leaked in Dublin but there is certainly a serious problem. If the leaked water does not amount to half the 600 million litres used in the greater Dublin area, it probably amounts to at least 40% of that. That has to be tackled.

There is serious concern about the proposal to bring water to Dublin from the Parteen Basin, just below Lough Derg, which is close to where I live. I do not know whether Members have read any local Limerick newspapers in the past week. There was a photograph of a man in the middle of the River Shannon between Thomond Bridge and Sarsfield Bridge with a picnic table, chair and a sun umbrella. He was sitting on his chair in the middle of the river with water up to a certain level, but not up to the level of the table. Therefore, there is a serious water shortage in the river. This alerts people in the mid-west to the concerns that exist. I acknowledge the argument made by Irish Water that the water taken will result in only a tiny reduction in the level of the Parteen Basin. I reiterate the concern that there should be some control from the mid-west if the project is to go ahead. The local authorities in the mid-west should have the capacity to say Dublin is not getting any more water from the area if it is needed in the region. I have seen all the technical arguments and I understand the problem in Dublin but the problem of leakage needs to be addressed.

The context of this debate was described in the debate on fossil fuels, which I just listened to. It covered the reality of climate change and how it affects us here in addition to people in other parts of the world who are much more vulnerable. We have seen evidence of climate change ourselves, with both the dry spell and the snow that fell unseasonably earlier in the year. People in Ireland are beginning to realise this is a reality. Whatever Mr. Donald Trump and others may say, climate change is an absolute reality.

A colleague in my constituency, Deputy Michael Noonan, famously said we should get the dead cat off the pitch, the dead cat being the issue of water charges. There is an element — maybe it is a little bit of the cat — that still needs to be addressed, namely, the issue of wastage and overuse of water, be it by domestic or business users. People have been careful about conserving water and realise there should be some punishment for excessive use. Businesses, in particular, have been highlighted. I do not know whether Members read the article by Stephen Kinsella in The Sunday Business Postat the weekend. He wrote an extensive article on the volume of water that is used apart from domestic water. Therefore, it is a broader issue. There has to be some kind of cost recovery for the State where there is wastage of water. There are legitimate uses for water in business, agriculture and the domestic environment. These uses should be understood as important for people in their homes and for jobs but here has to be some way in which wastage can be addressed, wherever it occurs.

Now that time has elapsed since the debates at meetings of the water committee and debates prior to those, I hope it will be possible to talk about this issue again in a real way, based on the acknowledgement that there genuinely is wastage. We now know from experience in the recent past and from the fact that we will still be conserving water in the future, what a precious commodity treated water is. We must ensure that we look after it and deal with the pipes and wastage, and that we are all careful about how we use this precious resource.

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